Between Apple's App Store and Google's Android Play Store, there are more than 1 million apps to choose from. When you throw in apps from BlackBerry's App World and the Windows Phone store, we're dealing with a mind-boggling number of apps.

But not all apps are worth your time, so we picked out the 100 best from a variety of categories like games, news, social networking, and productivity.

How did we come up with the list?

Just like last year's App 100 list, a lot of these apps are some of our favorites that we use every day. We also took a careful look at some of the best and most popular apps that launched over the past year.

What separates a good app from a great app is the user experience. The best apps look incredible, take advantage of our phone's powerful hardware, are fast, easy to use, and make life easier or more fun.

The apps listed here aren't ranked. Instead, we broke everything up by categories. You can click the big link below to view our full list, or jump to one of the following categories:

Fantastical is the only calendar app you need.

Kevin Smith/Business Insider

Fantastical is an iPhone calendar app that's ridiculously easy to use. Besides keeping you organized, the app's best feature lets you enter simple phrases, which it will then translate into a calendar appointment automatically.

For example you can type, "lunch with Kevin Thursday at 3 at Taco Bell" and Fantastical will handle the rest.

Quip is an alternative to Microsoft Office for iPad.

Quip

Quip is a brand-new mobile word processing app. You can use the app to create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. You can also use the app to collaborate on blog posts, manage projects, or even share a grocery list.

Quip is made by Facebook's former chief technology officer. The app also syncs to a desktop version.

Gmail is still one of the best ways to check email on the go.

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Gmail's app gives you access to the popular Web-based email service. The app is packed with the latest features like Gmail's priority inbox and customizable tabs.

With a Gmail account, you get plenty of storage for free, meaning you likely never have to delete an email again. (You can always purchase extra storage just in case). You also get Google's excellent search feature, so you can easily go back and find old messages.

Price: Free

Available on: Android and iOS. Gmail can also be accessed from any smartphone browser like BlackBerry and Windows Phone by heading to m.google.com/mail.

Dropbox is the best place to store your files online.

Steve Kovach, Business Insider

Dropbox lives on your desktop as a virtual folder. You can drag and drop files into your Dropbox and they'll appear on all of your devices. You also have the option to store files in a public folder so you can easily share them with a simple download link.

Dropbox gives you 2 GB of storage for free, but you can earn extra storage by inviting your friends to sign up. There are also a bunch of paid plans.

Pocket and Instapaper are two great ways to save articles you want to read later.

Kevin Smith/Business Insider

Pocket is a web service and app that allows you to save articles, videos, and pretty much anything else you find online to check out later. Pocket automatically syncs across all your devices and can be used even when you aren't connected to the Internet.

The app is well-designed and integrates with over 300 different apps like Twitter, Flipboard, and Pulse.

Instapaper is a minimal app that makes it easy to read web articles later.

The service strips down articles, removing ads and photos, to present you with easy-to-read articles on your iPhone, iPad, Android device, or Kindle. Instapaper is the perfect solution when you don't have enough time to read something right that instant.

Kindle/Nook/iBooks, for reading your favorite e-books, on the go.

Kevin Smith, Business Insider

Each of these three apps will let you access millions of e-books, but it's up to you to choose the service that's best for you.

Here's the breakdown:

Kindle lets you purchase and read books from Amazon's book store. The app is well-designed and robust and offers an excellent interface. We love that your purchased books sync between all your Kindle devices and apps, so you can always pick up where you left off. Amazon Kindle users can also check out books from their local library and lend purchased titles to friends.

Barnes & Noble's Nook app integrates books, newspapers, and magazines from the company's huge collection. It is easy to use and allows users to load their own ePub files. You can also lend books to friends with Barnes and Noble's LendMe feature.

iBooks is Apple's own bookstore/book-reading app. In addition to providing you with access to the latest books, the app also organizes your PDFs. The downside: You can only read your books on iPhones or iPads.

Conde Nast's suite of magazine apps is what all digital magazines should look like.

Conde Nast's entire suite of magazine apps are what all digital magazines should look and feel like. The experience makes you feel like you're reading a real magazine with a bunch of additional features like behind-the-scenes videos, interactive ads, and beautiful high-res photography.

You can enjoy your favorite magazines like GQ, Wired, Vogue, The New Yorker, and Vanity Fair without carrying all the bulk of a paper magazine.

Price: Free to download (subscriptions vary depending on the magazine)

Instagram is the most popular mobile photo-sharing app around.

The popular photo-sharing network makes it easy to share pictures and videos with friends and followers on most social networks. Instagram is know for its photo editing "filters" which add flair to an otherwise dull photo.

OkCupid, HowAboutWe, Grindr/Blendr are the next generation of dating apps.

Joel Simkhai

These three are great examples of dating apps done the right way.

Grindr: Grindr is a location-based dating app targeted towards gay men. The app lets you know what singles are nearby so you can meet up with them. (Available for Android and iOS) There's another app by the same company called Blendr that's designed for straight couples.

OkCupid: OkCupid has most of the same features as other social networks. Users can chat, send status updates, message potential matches, and let the service match you up using its algorithms. The mobile app also lets you know what singles are nearby for impromptu meetups. (Available for iOS and Android)

HowAboutWe: HowAboutWe changes the traditional online dating mold. It calls itself an offline dating site. Instead of simply perusing profiles, HowAboutWe encourages users to propose fun and interesting dates. If you see an exciting date with a potential match, you can use the app to reach out. (Available for iOS and Android)

Price: All of the apps listed above are free.

Vine is a creative way to share six-second looping videos.

Business Insider, William Wei

Vine lets you splice together clips that play on a loop and share them with your friends.

You can edit videos on the spot and post to Twitter and Facebook. The community also allows you to find, follow, and interact with other Vine users.

The official Twitter app is a great way to keep up with your tweets on the go.

REUTERS/Regis Duvignau

Twitter's official app helps you keep up with tweets. Besides that, it offers some unique features that aren't found in third-party apps. For example, you can set specific push notifications for individual accounts so you'll never miss an important bit of news.

Tumblr's mobile app lets you update your blog on the go.

LinkedIn makes it easy to stay in touch with your professional connections.

Kevin Smith/Business Insider

LinkedIn's mobile app is a great way to keep up with more than 225 million members worldwide. The app is well-designed, syncs with your phone's calendar to help stay on top of meetings, and even lets you view and save recommended jobs.

The app streamlines the user experience and makes it much easier to get around. One of the core principles behind the app's development was to help users get to features in one tap instead of three or four like before.

Tinder is the location-based version of hot or not.

Kevin Smith/Business Insider

Tinder is a new mobile-only dating app. Think of Tinder as "hot or not." If you see a photo of someone you're interested in, you can "like" them. If that person likes you back, you can start a conversation and decide if you want to meet in person.

Facebook and Facebook Messenger help you stay in touch with all your friends on the go.

REUTERS/Robert Galbraith

Facebook's app is much better now than it was a year ago. Besides letting you see what your friends are up to, you can share updates, photos, and videos on the go. Facebook's app keeps you in the know with push notifications and messages. You can also play games and use your favorite Facebook apps.

Facebook Home turns your home screen into a Facebook photo gallery

William Wei, Business Insider

Facebook Home adds a Facebook-powered wrapper to your Android phone. Instead of seeing your normal lock screen, you get a beautiful slide show of your friends' Facebook photos and status updates. You can comment and like those updates directly from the lock screen without opening the regular Facebook app.

YouTube is the best way to watch and share Web videos.

Steve Kovach/Business Insider

Last year, YouTube was baked into all iPhones and iPads. This year it's a stand-alone app.

The new YouTube app is much better than what we had before.

Google poured a lot of time and resources into its video-streaming app. Now you can receive "what to watch" recommendations, discover channels and videos with voice search, subscribe to your favorite channels, and even share videos through Google+, email, Facebook, and Twitter.

Netflix costs $7.99 per month and has its own original series like "Orange is the New Black," "House of Cards," and "Arrested Development." Besides its own series, Netflix has a ton of popular content that will satisfy the entire family. Netflix is available on the Web, streaming boxes like Roku and Apple TV, video game consoles like the PS3, and several TVs with built-in WiFi.

While Netflix has a ton of content, Hulu Plus has a lot more current content. You can catch up with many of the latest seasons of popular TV shows.

Hulu Plus costs $7.99 a month. It's available on most of the same devices as Netflix is, along with all major modern smartphones and tablets.

To access HBOGo you have to subscribe to the service via your local cable company. HBOGo gives you access to the network's entire original series TV catalog and a ton of movies. You can access it via iOS, Android, Kindle fire, Roku, some Samsung TVs, Xbox 360, and Apple TV.

Amazon Instant Streaming is included with an Amazon Prime Membership ($79/year). With Prime Instant you'll be able to stream thousands of popular movies and TV shows. You can watch Prime Instant videos on iOS, Kindle Fire, PS3, Xbox, Wii, Roku, and a ton of TVs and DVD players.

Spotify lets you stream all the music you want for a flat price.

Kevin Smith, Business Insider

Spotify is our favorite music app. It's totally worth the $9.99 per month.

Since last year, Spotify has supercharged its experience across all platforms (desktop, tablet, and smartphone). The music-streaming service did this by releasing a dynamic discovery tool, getting more albums the same day they hit store shelves (and iTunes), and building out a useful app store.

You should care about Spotify because it lets you stream music to your desktop for free. For a fee, you can listen to music offline and use the service's awesome mobile apps.

Spotify's library is full of millions of tracks from all the major record labels, so it shouldn't be hard to find exactly what you want to listen to.

TuneIn lets you listen to regular radio stations over the Internet.

TuneIn

With TuneIn you can listen in to over 70,000 stations from around the world including, music, sports, and news. Besides just listening to traditional radio, you can also check out podcasts, concerts, and interviews on-demand.

Candy Crush is the most addictive game out right now.

App Annie

Candy Crush is one of the most popular games today.

It's virtually never-ending, with more than 350 levels that are challenging, but always keep you coming back for more.

Candy Crush's gameplay is simple. You have to swipe different colored candies to match three of the same in a row. If you match four or five in a row you get a new candy that does more damage to the board. If you pair two of the new candies together, even more damage is done to help you get ahead.

Ridiculous Fishing is a fun game about fishing with guns, chainsaws, and toasters.

iTunes

Ridiculous Fishing is a game that couples beautiful graphics with strategy.

The point is to see how deep into the ocean your fishing hook can go. On the way back up, you have to catch as many fish as you can. Once the fish reach the surface, you have to take them all out with a weapon.

Plants Vs Zombies 2 is the sequel to one of the most popular iPhone games of all time.

Plants Vs Zombies

Plants Vs Zombies 2 is the sequel to the highly popular tower defense-style game that challenges you to defend your home with an array of plants from a rush of zombies. There are tons of levels with mini-games and challenges sprinkled throughout for hours of gameplay.

"The Walking Dead" is like an interactive comic book, but you decide how the story goes.

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"Walking Dead": The Game draws inspiration from the same mold as the "Walking Dead" comics and the hit AMC TV show.

The interactive game isn't just another shooter, you make decisions in the game that affect different outcomes. But don't worry there's still tons of action and strategy that'll keep you coming back for more.

There are a lot of add-ons called episodes that you can buy. These episodes bring a ton of new adventures.

GTA: Vice City is just like the original game except with touch controls.

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Grand Theft Auto: Vice City brings the popular PlayStation game to the iPad, iPhone, and Android.

Vice City has great graphics, easy game play, and it feels just like you're playing the original. The campaign mode will take you hours to get through and best of all, the game supports the high-resolution retina display.

Moves is a fitness-tracking app that lets you ditch wearable tech and just use your smartphone to track your steps.

Moves-app.com

Moves uses the sensors in your phone to automatically track your everyday life and exercise. With Moves, you can record your daily walking, cycling, and running. The app will also help you keep track of the places in your daily life and build a storyline, and can count your steps and calories burned based on various activities.

Sleepbot/Sleepcycle are two great apps that will analyze your sleep to help you wake up feeling refreshed.

Kevin Smith/Business Insider

Sleepbot is an Android app that helps you figure out what's going on while you're sleeping. The app analyzes your movement, sound, and duration of sleep, and feeds you back data to help you sleep better. There's also an automatic alarm to wake you up and reminders for when to go to sleep.

Sleep Cycle alarm is an iPhone app that offers similar features to Sleepbot. Sleep cycle analyzes your sleep and helps you wake up while you're in the lightest sleep. This ensures you wake up feeling rested and relaxed.

Seamless is still the best way to order food from anywhere online.

Seamless allows you to quickly order delivery or takeout from more than 10,500 restaurants in 45+ cities. The app is well-designed and fully automated. You pay the bill and tip with your credit card, so even if you don't have cash on hand you can still get the food you want.

Sports: Apps that help you stay on top of your favorite teams.

Reuters/Ralph Freso

Team Stream keeps you in the know with all your favorite sports teams.

Kevin Smith/Business Insider

Team Stream is one of the best ways to stay on top of your favorite teams' news and scores from across the Web. The app is made by Bleacher Report and is completely customizable. It's also social, so it's easy to share up-to-date info with your friends via Twitter, Facebook, email, or text.

ESPN ScoreCenter keeps you up to date with the latest scores.

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ESPN ScoreCenter is another great app that keeps you informed with breaking sports news, scores, and even videos from the top events of the day.

ScoreCenter is the perfect app for the sports fanatic. It provides fans with real-time scores and news right on your smartphone. You can personalize your scoreboard so you'll receive only scores and news that you care about.

It also supports push notifications, so you'll never miss updates on another big game.

Yahoo Sports will get you full team pages with local news, rosters, and schedules.

Kevin Smith/Business Insider

Yahoo Sports is a fast, comprehensive sports app that gets you detailed player pages with season stats and fantasy sports news. You'll also get breaking news, coverage of virtually every sport, and live game tweets from local writers.

The official BBC Sports app is curated by BBC's team of sports journalists.

BBC Sports

BBC's new Sports app is perfect for soccer fans. With this app you'll get up-to-date information on Football, Formula 1, Cricket, Rugby Union, Rugby League, Tennis, Golf, and all the other main sports.

Besides just being able to read, you can watch video highlights and there are dedicated pages for every English and Scottish football league club.

Landcam and Analog Cam are great alternatives to your iPhone's regular camera app.

RealMac

Landcam is an app that really has huge potential to replace the stock camera app. Besides having filters and fonts you can add to your photos, you can easily edit with the app's 12 adjustment tools.

Analog Camera is also great way to take photos on your phone quickly and still keep track of recently snapped photos. Analog Camera always shows your four most recent images at the top of the screen. You can then swipe down to get out of camera mode and see your entire camera roll and photo stream.

Camera+ is the most comprehensive alternative to the regular iPhone camera app.

Camera+

Camera+ is one of the best alternatives to Apple's stock camera app.

The app is super fast and has tons of advanced features, including an impressive 6x digital zoom. We love the app's built-in filters, especially the clarity filter, which adds pro-camera crispness to almost any shot. The other filters enhance your photos and make them look even better.

VSCO Cam is a mobile social network for photographers.

VSCO Cam is a new photo community that lets you share your best photos.

VSCO lets you add separate focus and exposure rings to a photo along with a white balance lock. It basically ups your iPhone photography skills with just a few taps on the screen.

The app also includes powerful editing features and filters to make photos even better. But what's also cool about VSOC is that it has a built-in community so you can display your photos and share every shot you take.

Flayvr organizes your photos better than your phone's photo app can.

Kevin Smith, Business Insider

Flayvr organizes your phone's photos and videos automatically in a gorgeous layout. The app automatically pulls out photos and videos that are hiding in your iPhone camera roll and organizes them by date. It can also title your albums based on events in your phone's calendar app.

Travel: Don't leave home without these excellent travel apps.

Hipmunk and TripAdvisor are two great apps that help you get the best deals on flights, hotels, and rental cars.

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Hipmunk is a great way to plan travel. The app sorts through all of the travel, hotel, and rental car services to get you the best deals. Recently, Hipmunk introduced a new feature that lets you book last-minute hotel deals.

TripAdvisor is another great travel app that helps you get the best deals around. What's so great about the app? It's an overall seamless experience. TripAdvisor is easy to use, looks good, and makes it simple to book travel whenever you need to.

Uber lets you request a taxi from your smartphone.

Uber

Uber's mobile app lets you request a private driver from any city the company services. You don't have to worry about cash because Uber will charge your credit card and email you a receipt. Tip is included.

Google Maps is the only maps app you need on mobile.

Google

Google Maps is the best mobile mapping application. Period. It has the best and most accurate location data along with handy turn-by-turn navigation. Google Maps comes included with most Android phones and you can download it to the iPhone as a separate app.

If you have a Windows Phone, BlackBerry, or other device, you can get Google Maps through its mobile website.

Waze uses user-submitted tips to help you find the best routes.

Waze is a mapping application that Google recently purchased. It gets a lot of its data from its users. For example, users can tell Waze about traffic accidents, police activity, or gas prices. All that information benefits the Waze community.

Like other mapping apps, Waze can give you turn-by-turn driving directions too.

Embark is a great app if you need help taking public transportation.

Kevin Smith, Business Insider

Embark is an app that helps you navigate public transportation systems in a handful of U.S. cities. It's so good, in fact, that Apple recently bought the company to improve Apple Maps on the iPhone and iPad.

Available cities: New York City, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, New Jersey, and Washington D.C.

Zillow and Trulia will help you find property for sale.

Kyndell Harkness/Star Tribune photo illustration

Zillow's real estate app lets you see how much homes around you are worth. You can also check to see which homes are for sale, historical data on how much they've cost, and view gorgeous photos of the inside and outside of homes.

Trulia's app also lets you see how much homes around you cost. The app stands out with its interactive maps that show crime, school zones, and average prices.

1Password/LastPass will make sure you never have to remember a password again.

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1Password and LastPass are two competing services that remember all your passwords for you across all your computing devices. With a special browser extension, you just have to remember one "master password" and the apps will do the rest. It's a hassle-free way to keep all your passwords safe and secure.

Adobe Kuler helps pull specific color themes from the world around you using your iPhone camera.

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Adobe Kuler is a unique app that helps you figure out and remember specific colors. All you have to do is point your iPhone camera at an object, and the app will pull up a color scheme that matches. It's a great tool for photo editors and digital artists.

SwiftKey for Android is the ultimate keyboard replacement.

Business Insider / Matthew Lynley

SwiftKey is an alternative keyboard that you can download to your Android phone. It's much better than the keyboards that come pre-loaded on Android devices because it does a great job at predicting the word you want to type next.

Venmo makes it easy to instantly pay people quickly and securely.

Venmo via YouTube

Venmo is an app that lets you pay your friends using your smartphone. It's a great tool to have if you need to split a check or you just owe someone money. The app connects to your bank account, sort of like PayPal does.

Haze is a gorgeous way to keep up with the weather.

Haze is a gesture-based weather app that stands out from the pack. We love Haze because it looks great and gets us all the information we want quickly and easily.

Haze pulls its weather data from Weather Trends 360, but goes beyond just predicting the forecast. The app also tells you how much sunlight is left in your day, if you need an umbrella or not, and specifics about precipitation.

Dark Sky tells you exactly when it's about to rain.

Dark Sky does one thing very well: It tells you exactly when it's going to rain. The app is beautifully designed and features a precipitation timeline that lets you know down to the minute when you can expect rain.